


Unlikely Inheritance (The Like A Spy Remix)

by Reddwarfer



Category: Burn Notice
Genre: Gen, Grief/Mourning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-15
Updated: 2012-04-15
Packaged: 2017-11-03 17:52:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,252
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/384218
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Reddwarfer/pseuds/Reddwarfer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For the first time in her life, Madeline can do what she wants, when she wants... She's perfectly alone these days, after all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Unlikely Inheritance (The Like A Spy Remix)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [florahart](https://archiveofourown.org/users/florahart/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Five Times Madeline Westen was at Least a Little Like a Spy](https://archiveofourown.org/works/302944) by [florahart](https://archiveofourown.org/users/florahart/pseuds/florahart). 



> This story jumped out at me and I had to remix it immediately. 
> 
> Thanks muchly to V for the awesome and timely beta.

Two weeks after the funeral, Madeline had gone through the house like a whirlwind—with the help of two friends—and tossed anything overtly Frank's into boxes she'd charmed the guy at the local liquor store into giving her. She shakily printed his name on each with a half-dead sharpie and dumped them unceremoniously into the garage until she could sort through them with a clear head. 

Frank wasn't the best husband in the world, she knows. God, does she ever know. Yet, she can't help but miss him even though she doesn't want to. It's been six months and she wants the pang of loss to disappear. Her thoughts drift to those unsorted boxes in the garage and she shies away from the chore even as a surge of anger courses through her. She's never felt so alone. 

"Goddamn it, Michael," she curses to no one at all. If she knew where he was, she'd slap some postage on the lot and send them all his way...force him to deal with the family he's done his level best to escape at every turn.

The phone rings and part of her is sure—so fucking sure—it's Michael that she almost forgets herself and answers with his name. She changes it to a terse "hello" at the last minute. Disappointment is hot on the heels of her relief even as she forces a pleasant tone. "Oh, Genie, sure, I can make it tomorrow."

After she hangs up, she feels unforgivably stupid. Michael only ever calls on her birthday—and sometimes doesn't even manage that—and he forgets she exists in between.

"Shit," she says, feeling the tears wet the corner of her eyes. "Shit."

She grabs a pack of smokes, makes herself a drink, and sits on the couch. She turns on the television and flips absently through the channels. She lands on an episode of _Scarecrow and Mrs. King_ , one from the last season, and sets the remote down. 

There was a time when she could see herself in Amanda. Now, she wonders if it were all wishful thinking. There's a wealth of clues, of hints, at her fingertips and she can't force herself to look at them.

Turning the television off, she grabs another cigarette and lights it violently. The nicotine does little to soothe her, but the familiarity is welcome anyhow. She goes out on the porch and lets herself get distracted by the drama of her neighbors. One of them is using the water hose during an off-week, and another is inviting the electrician in for more than rewiring. She doesn't care much and she doesn't like to gossip if it can come back to her, but she likes the feel of knowing something she shouldn't.

She picks up the phone and has the first five digits of Nate's number punched in before she hangs it up. Seeing him only makes her feel Michael's absence more keenly. 

"I hate you," she says, and she's not quite sure exactly who she's talking to anymore. The boxes, her guilt, the whole damned mess, can wait a little while longer. The stuff, like herself, isn't going anywhere. Just once, she'd like for something to be on her terms.

 

It takes another four months before she finds herself in the garage with a sense of purpose. "I guess I'm doing this," she says. 

Back before everyone deserted her, she used to say that anytime she spoke, she might as well have been talking to herself. Now, she talks to herself because it makes the silence of the house less oppressive.

"Time to find out what you'd been hiding all these years," she says as she grabs two boxes and brings them to the living room. The television's on—a marathon of _Cagney and Lacey_ —and she hums the theme music as she opens the first box.

Her fingers still before she can even remove the first item and she so fiercely wishes Michael was here that it leaves her a bit breathless. She could call Nate, and he might come if she hinted there were things he could sell in the bargain, but she doesn't feel comforted by his presence like she does with Michael's.

"I wish you'd forgive me, Michael," she says, "and come home."

The box is filled with the contents of Frank's old desk. All she had done during that mad rush after the funeral, fueled by grief, alcohol, and two friends who hated him, was pull out the drawers and haphazardly upend them without a moment's hesitation.

"Oh, Frank," she whispers as she pulls out an envelope with a set of pictures. She's not in any of them. The women are years younger, with the slightly trashy appearance girls who frequent low-end bars tend to have. Some of them she recognizes—Lindy and Rebecca, she thinks. In the photos, they are decidedly less dressed than the last time she'd seen them in person.

She almost bins them, but at the last moment, she tucks them away in a beat up shoebox with the words "keepsakes" scrawled carelessly on the lid.

Another twenty minutes (and thirty pages of worthless papers) later, she finds a little notebook filled with Frank's familiar henscratch. There are numbers and names—not real ones, no, but things like Short Stuff and Big Ben—and it takes her less than ten minutes to figure out the entire book's dedicated to who owes whom what. She puts that one away, too. 

It's not unheard of to have loan sharks collect from the families of dead losers. She can hear Michael's voice in her head, approving, as she sorts the remaining box, separating the trash from the information worth far more than the paper it's printed on. Knowing Michael would do the same makes her feel better, even as it makes her miss him more.

She packs away Frank's old clothes—most of them, anyhow—and drops them off at a Salvation Army. Though, she wonders if anyone would want to buy relics of the worst the nineteen seventies had to offer. It makes her feel freer, lighter than she has in years, as if some of his oppressive presence has finally dissipated enough to allow her to breathe a little easier.

The few boxes she's kept are a comforting presence in the wake of an unending loneliness she feels these days.

Sometimes, when she wants to be closer to Michael, who feels further away with every year that passes, she'll pull out one of Frank's boxes, and dissect every photograph, every record book, every scrap of paper, until a new Frank is constructed out of the ghost of the one she thought she knew. 

If Michael comes home... "I'll never show you this," she finishes her thought aloud. "You really would never forgive him, then." And by him, she really means _me_.  
  
When she sees him next, she has to bite her tongue against the tide of words she wants to share with him. Part of her wants Michael to see all that she's done, all she's learned, and be proud...see part of himself inside her. But, she doesn't. Instead, she hassles him about his distance, his health, his refusal to deal with his father's death, and a million other things that aren't what she really wants to say.

One day, maybe, he'll ferret the truth out for himself. He's good at doing that sort of thing. He got it from her, after all.


End file.
